We’re caught up in the holiday season and hope you are too! We're already celebrating Day 3 here at Accordance! In keeping with the spirit of giving, we’re continuing to offer incredibly generous discounts on a number of Accordance favorites in the days to come. Over the next 9 days, get ready for 9 more themes to make your days merry and bright. Each day will introduce new discounts, and each of those discounts will be good until the 12 days are complete. Afterwards, with a well-stocked Library, your studies will twinkle, and your research—how merry!

Special sale prices on the products featured below cannot be combined with other discounts. The special offer on all products will end on Saturday, Dec. 23, 2017 at 11:59 PM EST.

Day 3:A "Present" from the Past!

On the third day of ChristmasAccordance offered me:A “present” from the past:Reduced historically!

The Encyclopedia of Christianity (5 Volumes)

The Encyclopedia of Christianity is a monumental reference work that addresses the broad interest in Christianity and religion around the world today. Itdescribes the Christian faith and community in their myriad forms today and throughout the 2,000 years of Christian history; it also looks outward beyond Christianity, considering other world religions and philosophies as it paints the overall religious and sociocultural picture in which the Christian church now finds itself in the new millennium.

Galilee in the Late Second Temple and Mishnaic Periods (2 Volumes) (Fiensy, Strange)

In this two-volume set, David A. Fiensy and James Riley Strange have invited an international cast of experts to provide a comprehensive analysis of past and current research on Galilee and up-to-date commentary regarding ongoing site excavations.

Day 2:Pulpit's Little Helpers (up to 70% Off!)

On the second day of ChristmasAccordance offered me:Discounted "Pulpit Helpers":Great preaching tips to see!

The Preacher's Goldmine ("Golden Nuggets Series")

This series contains hundreds of relevant sermon outlines per volume which are designed to be aids to assist pastors, lay leaders, and students of the Bible create fully developed sermons through study and prayer. This module contains 59 volumes.

Persuasive Preaching: A Biblical and Practial Guide to the Effective Use of Persuasion

The reader will find in this book a valuable discussion of what persuasion really is, what the Bible has to say about it, how it is modeled in the New Testament, and what role persuasion should and should not play in our own preaching in the twenty-first century.

The Hanukkah Feast provides a great opportunity for us to showcase and discount a great variety of materials, all of which shed light on the Hebrew Scriptures. Whether secular or religious, Jewish or Christian, we all gain when we study our heritage (better than gaining calories on latkes and sufganiyot). For giving and for getting, enjoy our Collections of Tanakh study materials, Jewish Commentaries and Study Bibles, Rabbinics including the unique tagged Mishna, and ancient extra-Biblical writings, all on sale for the holiday.

If you are in Washington, DC, come by our booth at the Association of Jewish Studies, December 17-19, for a personal demo and even more sale prices.

Special sale prices on the products featured below cannot be combined with other discounts. The special offer on all products will end on Wednesday, December 20, 2017 at 11:59 PM EST.

November is always a busy month for us with new releases and our participation in the annual meetings of the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS) and the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL). Maybe you were able to attend one or both of these conferences and drop by our booth. But if you weren’t there this year, here are a few highlights!

Accordance Bible Software always has a tremendous presence at these events in which we create an open area for old and new customers to come sit down, learn, ask questions, and experience Accordance for themselves. This year was no exception as we set up our Accordance demo areas in Providence, Rhode Island for ETS (November 15-17) and Boston for SBL (November 18-21). We ran non-stop demos for all seven days of both conferences combined. We previewed the new features of Accordance that will be available any day in the free upgrade to version 12.2 as well as showing off a number of new titles for the Accordance Bible Software Library. We also demoed at a smaller booth at the meetings of The American Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR) from November 15-18 in Boston.

Anyone who was willing to sit down for a demo of any kind was able to enter our drawings which were held at the end of the second conference. Matthew C. won an iPad Pro; Ben Shin won 10 of our special English, Greek or Hebrew Starter Collections for his students; and Todd Chipman won a $200 Accordance gift certificate!

At both conferences, the Accordance booth is a great place to rub shoulders with well-known biblical scholars who use Accordance. This year, Dan Wallace dropped by to record a video describing A Reader's Lexicon of the Apostolic Fathers that we released earlier this year for Accordance. You can read Dr. Wallace’s blog post about the Reader’s Lexicon and watch the video on his website, and you might even catch a discount code if you act quickly!

We also enjoy meeting so many interesting Accordance users at these scholarly meetings. Longtime Accordance user and webinar instructor Abram Kielsmeier-Jones came to help out in the booth on Saturday of the SBL meetings. He commented, “I really enjoyed meeting so many folks at the conference from such a wide array of backgrounds: an Anglican pastor in Australia, a seminarian from Puerto Rico, a professor or religion with interest in DSS and Pseudepigrapha, a leading Hebraist who was being honored at SBL, and many more!”

These days Accordance Bible Software is mentioned pretty regularly--practically in casual terms in papers delivered--with comments such as “I used Accordance to determine x number of occurrences of _____ in the Dead Sea Scrolls” or something similar. However, Accordance was also a focal point in a couple of seminars as well. Tim Hegg gave a “Demonstration of the Dotan-Riech Masora Thesaurus Module in Accordance Bible Software.” Robert Holmstedt, Martin Abegg, John Cook, and Roy Brown held a session at SBL on “Syntactic Databases for Biblical & Early Jewish Texts.”

Regarding this syntax session, Dr. Holmstedt said, “I enjoyed the opportunity to walk through the strengths and features of the syntax database in real-time. Answering questions about how the database is constructed or about how to build effective searches is almost always more useful in a face-to-face context, and this is perhaps the greatest benefit of conferences.” Dr. Abegg shared this encounter: “In one of the searches I displayed, I intended to determine whether we should expect a definite direct object to have the particle את. One of the attendees talked with me later and pointed out that he had noticed that my results suggested that it made a difference whether the direct object was animate or inanimate. He had just written a chapter on definiteness for a Hebrew grammar so his observation is important.”

For attendees who could spend a bit more time with us, we also offered an all-day Accordance Training in Boston right before SBL began.

As already mentioned, we showed off exciting new features that will be forthcoming in Accordance v. 12.2, and we released a number of new titles at the conference that were geared toward scholarly interest. Included among these new releases was a Quran bundle of five texts, including the first morphologically-tagged Arabic version of the Quran available in Bible software, updates to the Biblia Hebraica Quinta, a more complete edition of the Babylonian Talmud in Hebrew, and more. Many attendees were also interested in seeing our Android version of Accordance in action and learning how to take part in our open beta.

These sessions are always a whirlwind of activity for us, but it’s so exciting to talk with users who engage ancient texts using Accordance in so many different and fascinating ways. Next year’s meetings are in Denver, Colorado. We hope to see you there!

Over the past year or so, nearly every day I've responded to Accordance users on our forums, our various social media venues or in private messages and conversations asking me when our long-promised Android version of Accordance Mobile will be ready. While our Android version has taken longer than we had hoped, along the way, many have asked if we could even release just a reader for Android so that Accordance users could have access to their Accordance Library on their favorite non-Apple mobile phones and tablets.

Of course, we’re not satisfied simply to release a reader for Android; but rather than ask our users to wait even one day longer, we have now released our Accordance Mobile Android Open Beta! Although this release of Accordance Mobile for Android is an early beta release, it is definitely more than just a reader. As described in the Accordance User Forums yesterday, this 1.0 beta release comes with the following Major features:

Display of Texts

Searching of Texts

Grammatical and Key Number searching of Texts

Split Panes for Texts, showing a Text or Reference Tool

Display of Tools

Searching of Tools

Easy Install

Library Access to files

Text and Tool Display choices

Goto interface, via a grid or list

Of course, not everything is in place yet. In version 1.1 of the beta, we plan to add the following features:

Selection of text

Hyperlinks

Pictures

Instant Details

User Notes

Amplification

Now, you’re free to hold out for the final, non-beta release of Accordance Mobile for Android, which will be available sometime in 2018; but if you don’t want to wait any longer, we’d love to have you help us out! Go to Joel Brown’s forum post from yesterday, “Welcome to the Android Open Beta!” to download the current build. New builds will be posted in the Android Open Beta forum, so check back often.

Just remember that this is beta software. That means not everything will work yet, there will be bugs, and there will be crashes. But you can help us speed development along by posting any issues you encounter in our Android Open Beta forum as well as any suggestions and constructive criticism.

Mac, iOS, Windows, and Android. Now you can truly take Accordance with you wherever you want to go!

Dr. Robert Holmstedt, Professor of Biblical Hebrew and West Semitic Languages at the University of Toronto, invites Accordance users attending the Society of Biblical Literature conference in Boston next week to submit Accordance syntax searches now that you’d like him to demonstrate in the Hebrew Bible or Dead Sea Scrolls in his upcoming session.

Syntactic Databases for Biblical and Early Jewish Texts: Please join us for a demonstration, with examples and discussion, of the research potential of the Accordance Bible syntax databases on the Hebrew Bible, Qumran texts, and New Testament. The basic principles of the tagging process will be briefly covered, but the focus will be on example searches and the more advanced linguistic issues relating to the databases, such as verbal valency. Attendees are encouraged to bring questions and sample searches for discussion.

From Dr. Holmstedt: "For those attending this session in Boston, we welcome submissions beforehand for desired searches you would like us to demonstrate on the Hebrew Bible or Dead Sea Scrolls."

You can email Dr. Holmstedt at [email protected] or post your questions in the comments, and we will make certain he receives them.

In Tough-Minded Christianity: Honoring the Legacy of John Warwick Montgomery, editors William A. Dembski and Thomas Schirrmacher write this of John Warwick Montgomery:

Bursting on the intellectual scene of the 1960s like a meteor, he was a theologian with an attitude. Christian orthodoxy was for him not just true. Nor was it merely defensible, as though it were but one among many credible intellectual options. For Montgomery, Christian orthodoxy could be and needed to be vindicated. And with unstoppable energy he was going to make that happen. Not only did he begin a furious publication schedule […], but he also took his assault on secularism as well as the vindication of Christian orthodoxy right into the belly of the beast—to the highest levels of an academy that had spurned Christianity.

Image on right: John Warwick & Lanalee de Kant Montgomery

To call John Warwick Montgomery simply an apologist or even just a theologian would be incredibly reductionist as he is both of those and so much more. Montgomery holds degrees in law, philosophy, theology and even librarianship—a total of 11 earned degrees in all. Born in 1931, Montgomery studied and received degrees from Cornell; University of California, Berkeley; Wittenberg University; La Salle University, University of Essex; University of Chicago; University of Strasbourg; and Cardiff University. He is also an ordained Lutheran minister.

A prolific writer, John Warwick Montgomery has published over 150 articles and more than 50 books. For the first time on any Bible software platform, in conjunction with the 1517. Legacy Project, we are pleased to release 33 of the most important works of John Warwick Montgomery for the Accordance Bible Software Library. These titles, with introductory discounts through November 6, can be purchased all at once or in thematic sets.

For those of you who prefer to get your apps from the Mac App Store (MAS), your wait is over. Accordance 12 is now available for download!

Accordance 12 MAS is a great way to introduce new users to Accordance, especially those users who only like to download applications directly from Apple's servers. Downloading Accordance 12 MAS is free because it is essentially the same as Accordance 12 Lite that we released last November. From an in-app purchase in Accordance 12 MAS, a user can upgrade to a Starter 12 Collection and unlock all features of the program.

Current users of Accordance 11 MAS can upgrade to Accordance 12 through the in-app Starter Collection purchase as well. All of your content from Accordance 11 MAS will be moved over to v. 12.

If you have any further questions, please check out our "Accordance for Mac" page as well as "Accordance 12 in Mac App Store." Both of these pages describe the functional differences between Accordance 12 downloaded from the OakTree servers vs. downloading from Apple's servers.

Please feel free to share Accordance 12 with your friends and colleagues. And we'd ask that anyone using Accordance 12 MAS to please add a review on the MAS page after you download it!

Not sure how to pronounce Greek or Hebrew properly? Accordance’s audio resources for the Hebrew Bible and the Greek New Testament can help! This podcast covers how to use them on Macs, PCs, and iPhone/iPads. In addition, if you are a Mac user, Accordance can use any one of its high-quality system voices to read any text or tool. That includes Bibles in a variety of international languages. [Accordance 12: Basic]

Walther Eichrodt (1890-1978) taught at University of Basel (Switzerland) from 1921-1966 where Karl Barth also taught. Previously, he had received his education at Griefswald, Heidelberg and Erlangen where, like Gerhard von Rad, he studied under Otto Procksch. He was a close colleague to Adolf Schlatter with whom he often led Bible conferences.

In 1933, Eichrodt broke with many of his recent teachers and peers by publishing Theology of the Old Testament (now in its 5th edition, 1960), affirming that the Hebrew Scriptures were not a substandard religious document, an idea that was in conflict with the prevailing German cultural mindset of the time. Throughout his life, although he remained a proponent of his contemporary understanding of an evolutionary origin to the Pentateuch as presented in the Documentary Hypothesis, nevertheless, he retained a very reverent view of the biblical text.

For Eichrodt, covenant (Hebrew: בְּרִית/bᵉriyṯ; German: bund) is the central theme of the OT. He defined covenant as God’s self-revelation in choosing people and how they should live (see ch. 2, "The Covenant Relationship" in vol. 1 for much greater detail than my summary here). Eichrodt suggests that covenant involves personal obligation of two parties, but the peculiar thing about biblical covenants was that God obligated himself. God’s covenant was mediated to Israel through charismatic leaders of their religious system. Covenant was so central to later events, that Eichrodt believed Moses and the events at Sinai to be historical, unlike some of his contemporaries at the time. According to him, Israel existed for the covenant, not the reverse. However, Eichrodt never quite reveals his view of exactly what happened at Sinai.

In choosing covenant as a central theme, Gerald Bray has suggested that Eichrodt was able “to uphold the doctrine of divine revelation, and to explain how God had been at work in the history of Israel” (Biblical Interpretation Past & Present, 1996, p. 386). Elaborating on the meaning of covenant, Eichrodt's first explanation focuses on how the covenant delivered through Moses “emphasizes one basic element in the whole Israelite experience of God, namely the factual nature of divine revelation.” Eichrodt explains that “God’s disclosure of himself…[is understood]…as he breaks in on the life of his people in his dealings with them and molds them according to his will that he grants them knowledge of his being.”

For Eichrodt, textual development began with oral tradition. Behind these oral traditions were specific historical events. Then there was a pre-textual reflection on the events which led to the production of the written sources of the Documentary Hypothesis: JEPD. Eichrodt points out that words held more power in ancient times than in contemporary times. He writes of “the cosmic power of God.” For him, the word of God is linked to the Spirit of God.

As stated earlier, Eichrodt held to the central theme of covenant in his theology. Rather than using a book-by-book approach, Eichrodt uses systematic categories to discuss the theology of the OT. Having a central theme gives him a number of benefits. First, it offers an organizing structure to Theology of the Old Testament since everything in the OT must therefore—somehow—be related to covenant. This also allows him to relate very divergent texts to each other because they had the single common element of the covenant connecting them. Second, it stresses the unity of the OT, which could be seen as a work containing multiple sources focused upon the same theme rather than a work of divergent literature that only had nationality as a common element.

Of course, one could ask how to fit the ever-present issue of Wisdom literature to the central-theme approach. How does the Song of Solomon relate specifically to covenant? If Eichrodt focuses on one major theme, how well can he treat divergent themes in Scripture? To be fair, E. A. Martens writes that “Eichrodt did not ignore the diversity others saw in the Old Testament. However, he started with the notion of theological unity. Other scholars since Eichrodt’s time have been more enamored with theological diversity in the Old Testament.”

Regardless of the one's opinion of a one-theme approach for the Old Testament, Eichrodt brought fresh understanding and insight into OT scholarship that arguably can still be wrestled with today. His two volumes on OT theology display not only his ability to communicate well, sometimes even poetically, but also they display his sincere devotion to God.

[Note: this blog post has been adapted from a review of Eichrodt's Old Testament Theology that I wrote a few years ago.]

Two decades later, Bart D. Ehrman’s book, The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture: The Effect of Early Christological Controversies on the Text of the New Testament continues to create debate and dialogue. Ehrman’s later works have even brought textual criticism, a field once reserved to academia, to the lay level. In response to Ehrman’s work, Daniel B. Wallace has edited Revisiting the Corruption of the New Testament: Manuscript, Patristic, and Apocryphal Evidence--released today for the Accordance Bible Software Library.

Revisiting the Corruption of the New Testament contains essays by six authors, all dealing with textual criticism and specifically the claim that scribes significantly corrupted the text of the New Testament. Wallace includes an essay of his own, an expansion of a presentation he made in a debate with Bart Ehrman and others in 2008 at the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. The other five essays were originally presented the same year at the national meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society in the same year.

This volume is also the first installment in what is to be an ongoing series, Text and Canon of the New Testament. This series will present volumes that address questions of whether or not the original text of the New Testament can be recovered based on manuscript evidence as well as questions concerning the 27 New Testament documents in relation to other writings of the early church. Revisiting the Corruption of the New Testament contains the following essays that either address Ehrman’s claims or discuss related text-critical issues:

"Lost in Transmission: How Badly Did the Scribes Corrupt the New Testament Text?" by Daniel B. Wallace. Points of agreement are found with Ehrman on some issues, but in this examination of some of the major passages covered in The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture, Wallace demonstrates why he believes so-called “orthodox corruptions” are not “as pervasive or as significant” as Ehrman presents.

"The Least Orthodox Reading Is to Be Preferred: A New Canon for New Testament Textual Criticism?" by Philip M. Miller. One conclusion that could be made from Ehrman’s claims about the New Testament is that “the least orthodox reading” is probably to be preferred when looking at variants, resulting in foundational new criteria for textual criticism. Miller offers evidence as to why this conclusion should be challenged.

"The Legacy of a Letter: Sabellianism or Scribal Blunder in John 1.1c?"by Matthew P. Morgan. Looking specifically at two later variants of καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος in John 1:1, Morgan examines the implications of a Sabellian understanding of God if the two manuscripts were correct.

"Patristic Theology and Recension in Matthew 24.36: An Evaluation of Ehrman’s Text-Critical Methodology" by Adam G. Messer. Some ancient manuscripts do not contain the phrase translated “nor the son” in Matt 24:36. Messer examines the evidence in patristic writings to see if this omission in some manuscripts was influenced by orthodox Church Fathers.

"Tracking Thomas: A Text-Critical Look at the Transmission of the Gospel of Thomas"by Tim Ricchuiti. In this only chapter dealing with a text not in the New Testament, Ricchuiti attempts to determine the earliest version of The Gospel of Thomas using the Coptic text and three Greek mss fragments.

"Jesus as θεός: A Textual Examination" by Brian J. Wright. Did any of the New Testament writers specifically claim that Jesus was God? Wright examines 17 passages in the NT to determine the answer.

In addition to the six main essays, Revisiting the Corruption of the New Testament: Manuscript, Patristic, and Apocryphal Evidence also includes indexes to Scripture, Ancient Sources, and Persons and Subjects. Page numbers are included for citation purposes.

Most readers will find a knowledge of Koine Greek necessary for following the arguments in this book. For anyone interested in New Testament textual criticism, and especially recent debates on the subject, these essaysare a must-read addition to your Accordance Library. Add it to your mobile device for easy reading on the go or quick consultation!